


Quiet, remember?

by angelinthecity



Category: Downton Abbey, Downton Abbey movie
Genre: Kissing, M/M, Movie Spoilers, Secret Rendezvous, Sexual Content, Thomas' POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-26 17:21:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20745914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelinthecity/pseuds/angelinthecity
Summary: After his serendipitous release from jail, Thomas wants to express his gratitude to Mr Ellis later that night.I didn’t come up with the idea then and there; I had thought about it the entire way back to the house. How he would feel in my mouth, what kind of sounds I could elicit from him.





	Quiet, remember?

**Author's Note:**

> Saw the Downton Abbey movie, imagination started running, had to get this one shot out of my brain.

I didn’t come up with the idea then and there; I had thought about it the entire way back to the house. How he would feel in my mouth, what kind of sounds I could elicit from him. Would he close his eyes or keep them on me, would his fingers clutch on to my neck, my hair.

Our nightly adventure had left my pulse running high, and it was still so when we parted at the bottom of the stairs, but I knew that there was more to it than just the adrenaline burst of having survived the close call.

“Goodnight, Mr Barrow.”

“Goodnight, Mr Ellis.”

We had stolen glances since he had arrived – quick, joyous, friendly, even conspiratory – but this one, now that he knew my secret, was long enough to render me speechless. The look in his eyes made me too nervous to suggest what I had planned to suggest, and so I was the one to turn away from our gaze first, but remembering that he would be leaving soon made me regain my courage, and so I was also the first one to stop and come back.

He had already started going up the stairs to the visitors’ wing, and my hushed word caught him on the first landing: “Hey!”

I couldn’t raise my voice for the others would have surely been alerted, so I wasn’t sure if he’d hear me. Then again, I wasn’t sure if he’d stop even if he did.

He stopped.

I knew what I wanted to say, but once again my tongue felt foreign, and the words wouldn’t come out, so I just stood there like an idiot until he descended the stairs back to me and asked with an eyebrow raise that gave away nothing: “Yes?”

“I– I wanted to thank you for getting me out of there.”

He smiled, shook his head. “You already thanked me.”

“I know, but I would like to…properly express my gratitude.” I desperately hoped my eyes would fill in the missing truths between my words. “If you’ll let me. That’s my room there, at the end of the corridor.”

His eyes followed the wave of my hand and he opened his mouth for a moment to say something, but in the end, the hallway stayed quiet. He looked at the door I had pointed at, then at me, then at the door again for the longest time before coming to a conclusion.

“I don’t think that’s the best idea, Mr Barrow.”

There it was. I should have known better than to delude myself, he was with the royal household, I was merely a butler from the country. Even if I had identified a fleeting moment of interest correctly earlier in the evening, he was sensible enough not to let his feelings sway him.

I was grateful that the hallway was dark save for the single stripe of moonlight that illuminated his face; mine was thus able to hide its embarrassment at the rejection.

“Of course,” I managed, and again I was the one to turn away first but this time I didn’t look back.

I had only had time to light up the lamp on the corner table and remove my shoes and my jacket, so no more than ten minutes could have gone by when I heard a faint knock on my door.

Had someone been up? Noticed I had been gone and seen me return at this hour, well past midnight? With him?

I stilled, hoped they would think I was already asleep.

Then, a second knock.

My heart started racing. They would probably not let up until I answered, so I braced myself, tried to come up with a plausible explanation and opened the door – to find him standing there, in his white shirt, his blond hair looking slightly less immaculately groomed than when I had last seen him ten minutes earlier.

“Can I come in?” he asked, eyes serious but lips fighting an expectation or a smile.

I swallowed. “I thought this wasn’t the best idea.”

“Let’s not have this conversation out here,” he whispered and pushed past me into my room.

I closed the door behind him, while his eyes took in my scarcely decorated room, stopping briefly on the quaint bed, then landing on me.

“Second best ideas are sometimes worth trying, too.”

“Right.”

I knew what I wanted, what I had probably wanted ever since the first words were exchanged between us mere days ago, and his coming to my room, his willingness to take the risk of someone finding us here, told me that he wasn’t exempt from the same want. And now that I had him here, now that he had sought me out and, inexplicably, found me worthy of pursuing, I became bold.

I forget which one of us took the first step but one of us did and then the other did too, and then the other one again, until there was only a breath of air between us.

He leaned in and his voice was warm in my ear when he warned: “But we have to be quiet. I don’t want to have to save you twice.”

“I can be quiet. Not so sure about you.”

“Cocky, are we?”

“You have no idea.”

Maybe he liked that I didn’t treat him with the reverence saved for someone from the royal household, maybe he liked to be challenged. Maybe he just liked me. Either way, he smiled as he took a hold of my chin, keeping it in place as his thumb swept over my lips like a test. I parted my lips at the touch, and he pushed the pad of his thumb between them. I gave his finger one slow suck but only one, because then his mouth was on mine and his reserved, mild demeanour of the daytime was gone. He kissed artfully, making good use of our time, and when his lips finally let up, looking as red and swollen as mine surely did, I was breathless.

“Well, Mr Ellis–“ I started when I regained my speech, but he silenced me with yet another kiss.

“Quiet, remember,” he whispered after, and I nodded.

He held onto that deal from his part when he let me push him gently against the wall beside my bed and kneel in front of him. He stayed quiet when I curled my palms around his ankles, sliding my hands up the backs of his still-clothed calves, up his thighs, all the way up to the waist of his trousers. His breathing quickened but he continued to make no sound when I slipped my fingers underneath the fabric. It wasn’t until I had him in front of me, naked from the waist down, that he let out an audible gasp and a quarter of a curse and that was when my mouth made contact with the head of his sensitive length.

Pleased, I grinned around him and did it again, invoking the same, almost involuntary response.

I pulled my lips away, but only enough to be able to look up at him and whisper with mischief: “Quiet, remember?”

After, we laid on my narrow bed for a while, limbs entangled out of necessity but neither of us minded. He had put his clothes back on because it was a cold night, but when I already missed the feeling of him and got bold and palmed him through his trousers, the fabric hid nothing.

“You already thanked me,” he laughed quietly onto my neck.

“Maybe I’m really, really grateful,” I suggested.

“I can see that.”

“Not that I think that you shouldn’t have done that. That’s what friends do. Save each other.”

“Are we friends?”

“I think we are.” I never would have dared to suggest more than that, and he seemed to agree, but then he shifted on the bed to lean on his elbow and looked down at me, examining my face.

“What?” I asked when his gaze became inscrutable.

His finger touched my lips lightly and just as lightly he said: “Goodnight, Thomas.”

I watched as he got up, slipped his shoes back on, and deftly turned the handle of my door so that it didn’t make any noise. A half-smile over his shoulder, and he was gone.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed. The idea was that the ending of this would somewhat match and make sense with their parting conversation the next morning…


End file.
